In June 1999, the government of Ghana launched a new National Land Policy document that sought to address some fundamental problems associated with land administration and management in the country. One proposed solution was the adoption of computer-aided information systems in the ‘lands...

This paper considers the recent experience of civil society organizations in Nicaragua within the Poverty Reduction Strategies Papers (PRSP) process. The focus of the paper is not the poverty reduction strategy itself but rather civil society responses to this initiative in Nicaragua. It...

This paper aims to set the World Bank’s recent ‘Consultations with the Poor’ (CWP) exercise within the context of the broadening of definitions of poverty and ill-being and the current predilection for participatory research. The CWP exercise was intended to provide a nuanced...

Many key dilemmas in contemporary development studies centre on disjunctures between theoretical innovation, formal policy and practice. Even the very meaning of ‘development’ and its implications are today hotly contested. Questions of scale, sustainability and identity lie at the...

This paper is concerned with the factors that influence and constrain NGO contributions to poverty reduction in a globalizing world, focusing on their role as transmitters of grounded knowledge about poverty in very poor countries. Interviews with staff in 33 NGOs in Ghana, a country where the...

In the second of two review papers on the World Bank’s series of World Development Reports (WDRs; 1978 to 2000/2001) we track some key themes and issues: North and South; state, market and civil society; and people, participation and values. Identifying clear trajectories in the series is...

This paper reviews common reasons postulated for the failure of many externally funded projects to improve the water supplies of people in poor rural areas of developing countries. Analysis of survey data from Tanzania shows that villages most in need of water supply improvements are unlikely to...

The world’s climate is changing and will continue to change into the coming century at rates projected to be unprecedented in recent human history. The risks associated with these changes are real but highly uncertain. Societal vulnerability to the risks associated with climate change may...

The World Bank has been accused of ‘power blindness’ for three reasons: its neglect of political power; its disregard for the power dynamic in inter-personal relationships; and its undemocratic corporate culture. However, power blindness, as commonly defined, does not offer a...

With the increasing availability of relatively cheap computer technology, and the development of sophisticated, nonlinear mathematical techniques, the ‘science’ of complexity emerged in the 1990s. The intellectual concern is the process by which systems composed of interdependent...